Rose MacLeod Part 70

"No," she said. "I am going to Bessie Grant's. She'll help me pull myself together, and in the fall I shall move back to town."

Electra came awake to her pathetic look.

"You are not feeling well, grandmother," she said solicitously.

"Feeling well!" The old lady repeated it with a fractious emphasis. "I'm worn out."

"Is it anything particular, grandmother?"

"Billy Stark is going away, isn't he? Isn't that particular enough? He's the only human creature left, except Bessie Grant and that pretty girl."

"Rose MacLeod?"

"Yes; but she's too young. She tires me; you all tire me, all but Billy and Bessie Grant. No, you can close the house, or I will, after you're gone. I shan't be in it."

There was something inevitably foolish to Electra in the regret of an old woman at losing the company of an old man whom she had not married at the proper time. She found herself hoping, with some distaste, that grandmother would forget him as soon as possible, and settle down into the decencies of age. But Madam Fulton seemed to have gathered herself and summoned energy for action. She sat upright now, and composed her face into more cheerful lines. She looked at Electra, and a wicked smile flickered out.

"I believe," said Madam Fulton, "if I have the strength, the day he sails, I believe I'll marry Billy Stark and go along with him."

Electra looked her pain and then her purpose to ignore it.

"I have left everything in complete order, grandmother," she said. "It will be easy to close the house. I have made my will."

"Bless me!"

"I have given you half my property. The other half I leave to the Brotherhood."

"For heaven's sake, Electra! What do you want to act like that for?"

Electra was too enamored of that deed to keep it hidden.

"It is for a monument to Markham MacLeod," she said, from her abiding calm. "But it is to be used by the Brotherhood. He would wish that."

Madam Fulton was regarding her, not satirically now, but in an honest wonder.

"Electra," she said, "I glory in you."

"Grandmother!"

"I do. I can't help it. You've gone bad, just as I said you would. And you never were so human in your life. Brava! I'm proud of you."

But Electra lifted her head a little and did not answer. Grandmother, she knew, could hardly understand. It made her isolation the more sacred.

"You give me courage," the old lady was saying. "Why, you put some life into me! I don't know but I've got the strength to fly with Billy, after all."

Electra rose. She could not listen. But at the door she turned, a new thought burning in her.

"Grandmother," she said irrepressibly, "if you would make your will--"

"Bless you, I haven't sixpence," said the old lady gayly, "except the tainted money from the book."

"That's what I mean." Electra came back and stood beside her. She breathed an honest fervor. "That money, grandmother,--it is tainted, as you say,--if you would leave that to the Brotherhood--"

Madam Fulton was on her feet, with an amazing swiftness.

"My money!" she cried. Then a gleam of humor irradiated her face, and she ended affectionately, "My own tainted money? Why, I'm devoted to it.

And I tell you this, Electra: if there's one sc.r.a.p of it left when you inherit, if you give it to your brotherhoods, I'll haunt you. As I'm a living woman, you shan't have a chance. I'll make my will and Billy Stark shall help me, and I'll leave it to that pretty girl, and she shall buy ribbons with it. And--My heavens! but there's Billy Stark now."

He was coming up the walk, and she flew to meet him in an ingenuous happiness, half dramatic fervor to plague Electra, who, walking with dignity, went out the other way.

Madam Fulton was laughing, at Electra, at life itself.

"Billy," said she, "I'd rather see you than all the heavenly hosts."

Billy took off his hat and wiped his forehead.

"I found I'd got things pretty well in order," he explained. "I thought you wouldn't mind my coming sooner."

"Mind! I'm enchanted. Come along in and have cold drinks and things.

Bless me, Billy! how it does set me up to see you."

She led the way into the dining-room, and when no one answered the bell, on into the kitchen for exploration in the icebox. She tiptoed about, her pretty skirt caught under one arm, her high heels clicking. The pink came into her cheeks. She had the spirit which is of no age. Then they sat down together at the dining-table in the shaded calm, and while Billy drank, she leaned her elbows on the table and, with the ice clinking in her gla.s.s, drank and made merry. She might have been sixteen and in a French cafe. Her spirits were seething, and she feared no morrow.

"I never can let you go in the world, Billy," she said, out of her gay candor.

He was instant with his gallant remedy.

"Come with me, then!"

"Sometimes"--she paused and watched him--"sometimes I almost think I will."

William Stark was a tired man that day. He had been telephoning and besieging men in their offices and talking business; he felt his age. It was one of the days when it seemed to him that sacred business even was less than nothing,--vanity,--and when he wondered, without interest, who would spend the money he might make. He was plainly f.a.gged, and here was a gay creature of his own age, beguiled by the old perennial promises, whom life had not yet convinced of its own insolvency. He wondered at the youth of women, their appet.i.te for pleasure, their inability to realize when the game is done. There was the curtain slowly descending between age and its entertainment, and Madam Fulton was clapping her unwearied hands as if things could go on forever. Grant her an encore, and she would demand another. As for him, he would fain go home to bed.

But Billy was a man of his word. His loyal heart could not allow itself to recognize the waywardness of his sad mind. The one had done with life in all but its outer essences. The other, in human decency, must go on swearing the old vows to the last. His face took on a resolution that made him more the man, and sobered her. He put out his hand.

"Will you come, Florrie?" he asked.

"Yes, Billy," she answered. "I'll come."

"You honor me very much." He sat there holding the frail hand and wondering at himself, wondering at them both. If he had known he was to go back in this guise, he might not have had the courage to come. But it was well. It was a good thing, having missed many ventures, not to let this one pa.s.s. Madam Fulton was having one of her moments of a renewed grasp on life, a gay delight in it which was a matter of nerves and quite distinct from memory or hope. She was discoursing gleefully.

"We won't tell Electra."

"Not if you'd rather not."

"She shall sail, and we'll sail after her. We'll send her cards from London. My stars, Billy! do you think we're mad?"

"You may be," said Billy. "As for me, I'm a great hand at a bargain."

And while there were flutterings of wings before sailing, Osmond bent over his ground and delved and thought. His brows were knitted. He hardly saw the earth or his fellow workmen, but answered mechanically when men came for orders, and went on riving up the earth, as if it were his enemy, and then smoothing it in tenderest friendliness.